As an event, the second-tier Republican debate was a bummer. With a stilted format, an all-but-silent audience, and more than a few candidates with no business running for president, Americans could be excused to tune out.

Only, they didn’t. As National Review’s Jim Geraghty noted on Twitter, the “undercard debate had 6.1 million total viewers, making it the third-highest primary debate ever on cable.” Viewers realized there’s more at stake in the GOP primary than Donald Trump’s ego.

Sure enough, some of the biggest issues facing Republicans – and the county – made an appearance, in a way they didn’t during the debate with top billing. And much as you’d expect, the candidates who crystallized those issues with retweet-ready soundbites had the most consequential performances.

There were some surprises. Remarkably enough, one of the apt catchphrases of the night belonged to Sen. Lindsay Graham. To date, the buzz for Graham has been minimal. Not only has he widely been viewed as approaching his candidacy as something of a lark (even though he’s the race’s only dyed-in-the-wool neoconservative). He also happened to turn in the most sedate, even morose performance on the debate stage – a real surprise for someone known in D.C. circles for possessing a genuine funny bone.

Somehow, however, Graham’s downcast demeanor worked. It focused the mind amid a flurry of inessential blather. So when Graham turned his fire on the chaos in the Mideast, he was able to deliver a line that will haunt the election season.

“These mythical Arab armies that my friends talk about, that are going to protect us, don’t exist. If I am president of the United States, we’re going to send soldiers back to Iraq, back to Syria, to keep us from being attacked here and keep soldiers in Afghanistan because we must.”

Mythical Arab armies – that’s a barb that stings, and stings deep. At a moment when the West’s trained and vetted “moderate” Syrian rebel force amounts to less than 60 individuals, and the Obama administration has staked its Iran deal on its perception that our Sunni allies can unite to roll back the Mullahs’ overreach, Americans are entitled to skepticism.

Nobody wants to send tens of thousands of troops back into the region’s treacherous quagmires. But Lindsay Graham – alone among the candidates – is asking the important question of what’s the alternative. It’s a big deal if the Arab nations, for all their firepower on paper, simply can’t restore order. There are alternatives to dealing with that fact, but anyone who disagrees with Graham has to start being clear about why they think their policy preference will work. It’s just not good enough to merely imply that the Mideast can be left to fester.

That brings us to the second apt catchphrase of the night. Here, unsurprisingly, according to the swiftly formed conventional wisdom, it belonged to Carly Fiorina. After what many believe was a hugely disappointing performance running in 2010 against Sen. Barbara Boxer, Fiorina’s forceful focus and crisp delivery earned her broad and deep raves.

But her line of the night didn’t receive the attention Fiorina herself clearly believes it deserves. Its first appearance came in response to an early question about Donald Trump. “I think he’s tapped into an anger that people feel,” said Fiorina. “They’re sick of politics as usual. You know, whatever your issue, your cause, the festering problem you hoped would be resolved, the political class has failed you. That’s just a fact. And that’s what Donald Trump taps into.”

Festering – there’s a mot juste. And you’ll be hearing it again and again, if Fiorina has her way. At the recent Dana Point summit convened by the Koch brothers, she used the F-word again – this time, in reference to that other prominent party contender, Jeb Bush.

“We have festering problems in Washington, D.C.,” she said; “the power, the weight, the complexity of government is literally crushing the potential of this nation. Given those festering problems for both Republicans and Democrats over decades, I think my question to Gov. Bush is … would be: Why do you think you are the Bush who can change that?”

It’s as easy to abuse a catchphrase as it is to mint it, of course, but Graham’s and Fiorina’s two slogans dovetail together into what should be a wake-up call for Republicans. At home and abroad, we’ve got badly festering problems – as a consequence of a sort of knowingly false faith in mythical armies real and figurative. It’s time to admit that, quite probably, the Arabs won’t save us.

Just like 5 percent growth won’t save us. And trimming top marginal tax rates won’t save us. And consolidating the nation’s health care industry won’t save us. And building a wall or a moat or a wall with a moat at the Mexican border won’t save us.

Some candidates at the “adult table,” such as Mike Huckabee, Ben Carson, Jeb Bush and Donald Trump himself, should be shaken up by the concepts Fiorina and Graham introduced. In an unsettled and crowded primary where voters are looking for force over finesse, the superficially least-important debate teed up future exchanges of potentially enormous consequences.

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